The Analysis and Comparison Pattern

Unit ID: PAW-M09-U03 Estimated active time: 20-25 minutes

The family

Comparing options, weighing suppliers, reviewing a proposal, working out what a set of figures does and does not show.

The defining feature is that a decision follows, which is why the trade-off and reversibility columns matter more here than anywhere else.

What this family gets wrong

It produces a clean table that looks like analysis and is partly invention: a cost that was estimated rather than supplied, a risk column filled with generic risks, a missing option nobody noticed was missing.

The guard is bounding the inputs and requiring gaps to be marked rather than filled.

The pattern

PATTERN: analysis and comparison

Use when:        a decision follows and the inputs are known
Do not use when: the inputs are not yet gathered

Slots
  Decision:     what will be decided, by whom, by when
  Options:      the list, including "change nothing"
  Known facts:  figures supplied, between markers
  Axis:         what the options should be compared on

Fixed rules
  - use only the supplied figures; write "not supplied" for anything missing
  - do not estimate, and do not compare to anything not supplied
  - include "change nothing" as a row
  - no recommendation

Output spec:  table (option | changes | gains | gives up | harder later |
              reversible) then: what the table cannot capture | what would
              most change the ranking
Review:       every cell traced to a supplied figure or marked not supplied
Known failure: generic risks appear in the risk column -- reject any risk that
               is not specific to this option

The "no recommendation" rule

It is in the fixed rules deliberately, following Module 5. The pattern produces the analysis; the decision is yours.

If a recommendation is genuinely appropriate — reversible, low stakes, you hold the facts — ask for it as a separate follow-up, so the analysis is not written backwards from it.

What the table cannot capture

This closing section is where the honest limits go: the thing that matters and has no column, the option that was ruled out before the table began, the figure everyone treats as fixed that is not.

It is usually the most useful paragraph in the output.

Mini practice

Take a comparison you need to make.

Run the pattern with "change nothing" included and no recommendation.

Then answer for yourself: what would most change the ranking?

Mark complete